21

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‌CHAPTER 21

9 October 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Deva means divine and mansukh means that your mind is your happiness. Manu means mind and suhka means happiness. So heaven is not somewhere else, it is just within you – and so is hell. They are not two geographical situations – they are inner attitudes... you create them. They are not things – they are just your mind trips. If you want to become miserable, you become. You can find excuses – they are all excuses; nothing causes misery. And if you want to become happy, you can become happy. Again you can find a thousand and one excuses but they are not causes.

Happiness and misery are not caused by anything from the outside. They are just your own inner creations. And once you start understanding this, there is no need to be miserable. Ordinarily we try to find some source outside of ourselves and make that responsible. If you are miserable you look around to see who is making you miserable, what is making you miserable. And of course you can project – the wife, the friend, the society, the parent, the mother, the father, the financial situation. You can always find something; there are a million and one things around you. You can always project onto something – but they are all scapegoats.

You are trying to avoid seeing the real source of it. If you go on avoiding, you will always remain a slave because you cannot do anything unless you know the real source of it – and the source is within you.

When you are feeling happy, that too is within you. You think it is a beautiful evening – that’s why, or because the girlfriend is so beautiful, so loving today – that’s why. Again you start finding something outside. In both cases the logic remains the same – that you are being manipulated from the outside.

This is what politicians go on doing. This is their analysis. Hence I call psychology political as well, because psychologists also go on trying to find some source outside. If somebody is neurotic, they will go into his past, into his relationship with his parents, and they will find something there. They

can even go back to the very birth pains, or to the womb, and they will find some way. So psychology also remains political.

Religion begins with the understanding that all that happens to you, you are the cause of – nobody else. It is difficult to accept because you will have to accept the dark part also. But once you accept it you are in total control of your life. For the first time you become responsible for your own being. For the first time you are your own destiny, and a great freedom arises. Then if you want to be miserable, nobody is hindering you. But nobody wants to be miserable. People continue to be miserable because their analysis is wrong. They are looking at some source which is not really the source. So they go on complaining, and their whole life becomes just a prolonged grudge, a complaint, nothing else... a cry, a scream, and all smiles disappear. But they are doing it to themselves.

Neither the society nor the parents nor God are responsible for you. Only you are responsible for whatsoever is happening. Once you understand this, suddenly a great space opens for you. Now you can take charge of your life, you have become mature – this is what I call maturity. If you go on throwing the responsibility you remain immature. Hence psychology is immature. It is still in the old logic – if you are miserable, find somebody who is responsible. You are miserable – it is because of your mother. Your mother is miserable – it is because of her mother. But this is a chain. Where does it get you?

This is very old logic. Adam was caught disobeying God. He started saying, ‘I have not done anything – it is Eve who persuaded me. She is responsible.’ Eve said, ‘I am not responsible. It is the snake who persuaded me.’ Of course the snake cannot say anything, otherwise he would have found somebody. One goes on in this way ad infinitum. Stop it!

With this stopping you enter into a totally different world. Stop this mind, this logic, and suddenly you have a freedom that you never had before.

[A sannyasin says: I’ve learnt from different therapies, that no matter how many groups I attended, I would still be the same person and not someone elseVery painful to find.]

That’s very good. That’s a great insight.

... It is painful... all growth is painful. To accept truth is very painful, hence we invent lies. We live in lies. Our religions are lies, our philosophies are lies. Our priests, our politicians are lies. They go on Lying. But people need lies because lies are very comfortable. Truth is very uncomfortable. It pierces your heart like a sharp knife. Lies are very soft. Lies function like a lubricant, they make everything smooth.

Nietzsche has said that man will never be free of lies because man cannot live without lies. He has said, ‘Dangerous are those people who try to bring man towards truth, who help man to know the truth. They are dangerous – they will destroy the whole of life.’

In a way he is right – in a way. Truth is very destructive. but only destruction can be creative. So I say he is right only in a way. He is half right, half wrong; he says only one part of the truth. Truth is destructive – it kills like nothing else. It shatters you completely, but only out of that shattering arises a new being in you which can live with truth and in truth.

Lies are comfortable because the being whom you think you are is itself a lie. Truth is uncomfortable because you will have to drop this being. this identity, and of course it is an old identity and you have become accustomed to it; you have used it for so long. It has been very efficient, it has helped you in many situations. Maybe it creates misery but still it is a very efficient instrument. So when it is suddenly shattered one feels afraid, apprehensive, but that’s what a man is called to be – courageous.

That’s what I mean by sannyas – that a man is ready to move into the world, the real world, howsoever painful it is. One is ready to drop lies and to live with the truth. Hard? – then let it be hard !

That hardness will disappear very soon – once you have decided to live with it. Then you will see that inconvenience was not really inconvenience – it was just the process of a new birth.

And this is one of the hardest truths to recognise – that one remains the same, that whatsoever we do, we remain the same – there is no improvement. The whole ego is shattered because the ego lives through improvement, the idea of improvement, the idea of reaching some day, somewhere; the idea of becoming somebody some day. Maybe not today, then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But the hope is very alluring, it is very intoxicating, it keeps you alive. Someday it is going to happen to you – you will be at the top, you will have improved.

To recognise the fact that there is no improvement in the world, that the world is not going anywhere, that there is no goal to it, in fact no purpose. no meaning.It is simply herenow, it is a celebration.

It has nothing like business in it. It is a play – what Hindus call leela. It is a play.

Once you understand this, the whole ego trip stops and suddenly you are thrown back to this moment with nowhere to go, no space to move in, no time to move in. The desire for the future creates time; time gives you space to move. Suddenly this moment is all, and there is nothing else. To live with this moment great courage is needed, great awareness and great intelligence.

The idea of improvement is the idea of the mediocre mind, in fact of a stupid mind, a dull mind. The dull mind postpones; the dull mind says, ‘Tomorrow I am going to make it.’ The dull mind knows well that it cannot make it today. The dull mind knows well that it is dull and stupid, so it can go on playing a game. It can say, ‘Tomorrow,’ so that there is rest – and tomorrow never comes. Before tomorrow, death comes one day and everything is finished.

To live in the moment is courageous, is very intelligent. To live in the moment means that there is no postponement. You cannot avoid the facticity of this moment. You cannot say that tomorrow you are going to do it – you have to do it right now. Whatsoever you have to do. you have to do right now. You have to be responsible: you have to have the ability to respond this moment. There is no other moment. One has to be very alert.

To learn how to live moment to moment is what religion is all about. It has nothing to do with churches and dogmas and creeds; and Christianity and Hinduism and Islam are all nonsense. It is to learn to live this life in this moment with no past interference, with no future interference; to live this moment in its purity, in its nudity, and to respond with one’s total heart; not to delay, not to postpone, because who knows? – tomorrow may never come. This moment may be the last moment. It is to live in such a way that if this moment proves to be the last, you will not repent.

So whatsoever you want to do with this moment, do. If you want to love, love, because there may not be any other moment. If you want to eat, eat. If you want to rest, rest. But let this moment be lived so totally that if there is no next moment, you can go without any repentance that you have missed anything.

[A sannyasin says: There’s a couple of things that I couldn’t get beyond living in the West. I’m stuck.

One is a feeling of emptiness and pressure in the pit of my solar plexus that no method I’ve tried will take away. It feels like a striking pain and an emptiness, and a lot of fear, a blind fear of something that is going to happen.

Osho checked his energy.]

You have misunderstood it. And whatsoever you have been doing was absolutely wrong, because it is not something that is bad – it is a blessing. The emptiness that is arising there is tremendously beautiful if you can accept it. You tried to get rid of it somehow; you rejected it. You thought that something bad had happened to you. You looked on it as if it were a disease. That’s where you missed. It is not a disease at all – and the pain is felt because you are rejecting it.

So no method can help you because all the methods were chosen to reject it, and the very rejection is the pain. There is no need to get rid of it. This is a beautiful emptiness. This is a meditative space that is coming to your being. You have to go into it and relax there.

You have to enter your own womb and relax there. This is the process of rebirth.

The first birth is out of the mother’s womb. The second birth is out of your own womb. [The sannyasin answers: I get overwhelmed by fear, absolutely.]

That’s natural. Even in the first birth the child becomes overwhelmed by fear. Birth, to the child, looks like death. We call it birth, but if we ask the child who is going to be born, he will say, ‘I am going to die.’ From his side it is a death. His home is being deserted; he is being thrown out, expelled. In fact that is the meaning of the parable of Adam being expelled from the garden of God. Every child feels as if he is being expelled, thrown out from paradise.

The word paradise is very beautiful. It comes from an arabic word ‘firdous’. And all the words – paradise and others – come from ‘firdous’. It means a walled garden; ‘firdous’ means a walled garden. The child lived in a walled garden, completely protected. Everything that was needed was supplied; even before it was needed, it was supplied. One day suddenly the child has to be thrown out, expelled. The child thinks that it is a death.

The same happens again when meditation creates your womb and you start falling into that womb and your new birth is coming close. You become afraid as if you are going to die. Each birth is thought of as if it is a death, and each death proves again to be just a new birth. nothing else.

So you are coming close to a very beautiful space... but I can understand your fear. You have come here at the right time. Now I will take the responsibility. You simply go into it.

Make it a point every night before you go to sleep to close your eyes and for twenty minutes go into your emptiness. Accept it, let it be there. Fear arises – let that be there too. Tremble with fear but don’t reject this space that is being born there. Within two or three weeks you will be able to feel its beauty, you will be able to feel its benediction. Once you have touched that benediction, fear will disappear on its own accord. You are not to fight with it.

Sit in this posture (the sannyasin was sitting with his legs folded under him, spine erect). If your head starts bending forwards – it will – allow it. You will almost go into a womb posture, just as the child remains in the mother’s womb. Your head will start touching your knees – just allow it. Enter into your own womb and just be there. No technique, no mantra, no effort – just be there. Just be acquainted with what it is. It is something that you have never known. Your mind is apprehensive because it is coming from a very different and unknown dimension. The mind cannot cope with it. It has never known anything like that before, so it’s simply puzzled; it wants to categorise and label it.

You have been doing all these things on that centre, on this centre, doing this meditation and that, but that is all the mind. The known is the mind and the unknown is God. The unknown never becomes part of the known. Once it becomes part of the known, it is no more the unknown God. The unknown remains unknowable. Even when you have known it, it remains unknown. The mystery is never solved. The mystery is intrinsically insolvable.

So every night go into that space. Fear will be there, trembling will be there; that too is okay. By and by the fear will be less and less and rejoicing will come more and more. Within three weeks one day suddenly you will see such blessings arising, such an upsurge of energy, such a joyous quality to your being, as if the night is over and the sun has come on the horizon.

[A sannyasin says: I feel the six months in the West have made much difference. I feel like I know what I have to do – get over my fear and enter into relationships, be with people, trust myself.]

You say that you would like to trust yourself, and you say that you would like to drop fear. You say that you would like to move into relationships with people – but they are all contradictory. If you really want to trust yourself, you have to trust your fear too. If you say, ‘I have to drop this fear,’ you have started mistrusting yourself. The fear is coming from your own being; it is not coming from any outer shore. It is your fear... it is you.

On the one hand you say, ‘I would like to trust myself’ and immediately you say, ‘I would like to drop the fear’ – you have started distrusting. Fear has also to be accepted. It is there – what can you do? When people say that they want to trust in themselves, they only want to trust in good things – love, prayer, silence. But when it comes to the opposite of these they don’t want to trust themselves; they start fighting.

If there is love there is bound to be a hate part. If you trust yourself you trust both love and hate. You trust love-hate, because both are yours. You don’t make a division. You don’t say, ‘I don’t want this hate at all. I simply want to be sweet and loving’ – then you have already started a conflict.

Whenever there is intelligence, there is fear. Only idiotic people are not afraid. So when you want to drop fear, the only way is to become very very stupid. The only way is to become so dull, so insensitive... Like a rock. The flower is bound to be afraid. It is fragile, it is vulnerable. This moment it is there, the next moment it may not be.

Human consciousness is the subtlest flowering in this existence so fear is bound to be there. Nothing is wrong in it, it is natural. The moment you say, ‘I don’t want fear,’ you have become afraid of fear itself. Now it is a subtle fear. You can go on playing a game of hide-and-seek.

Acceptance means acceptance of the total. Trust means trust of the total – good and bad. The sinner and the saint in you both have to be trusted. If you choose the saint and you want to drop the sinner, you don’t trust yourself. No saint has ever trusted himself. He has always rejected the part that he calls the devil part. The religious people don’t accept themselves, they don’t trust – they want just to be sweet. But life cannot exist without the diametrically opposite. It is a dialectics.

[Osho said that in India people over the centuries have tried to become insensitive to bodily pain and are worshipped as great ascetics.]

You can become insensitive but that is not going to help. It will not give you a greater flowering of intelligence – and if intelligence is lost, everything is lost.

If you want to drop hate you will have to drop love too, but then everything is lost. That’s why saints have become so afraid of love. They talk about love but they cannot love because they are so afraid of hate, anger.

My whole approach is the approach of non-division. I would like you to trust yourself, but then whatsoever it is has to be trusted. If your being does not feel like moving with people and relationships, that has to be trusted . That’s how you are – why force ? Every force is a distrust.

[The sannyasin replies: I feel I could hide forever like that.]

Allow yourself. Whatsoever you are, you are. I’m not saying that things will not change. Things will change tremendously, but simply accept. Stop this nonsense of forcing, changing, doing this and that. Simply be yourself. If you love hiding, that’s okay – nothing is wrong in hiding. That’s how it comes naturally to you – you are a hider. If it comes naturally to you to escape, you are an escapist, but that is okay.

For one month remain in this okayness, and that will be trust. No discrimination, no choice. Even if contradictions are there, they are there. For one month live in this climate of absolute okayness – and you will see that things are changing. You will start moving with people without any effort, and then it has a tremendous beauty in it. By and by you will see that the fear is not there so much, the intelligence has not been lost. When you accept even your fear, you become unafraid. Who is this who wants to drop fear? This too is fear!

You are not courageous enough to accept your own fear. You are afraid of your own fear. When you accept your fear you become unafraid, you become fearless. Do you see the point? Whatsoever you are – good, bad, sinner, saint, day, night, summer, winter – whatsoever you are, that’s how you are.

[A sannyasin says he has done Gestalt, and EST: It didn’t open my heart. It made things clear but it didn’t open my heart.]

No, it has nothing to do with the heart. It can only make your mind clear, but that too is a great thing.

Sometimes when the mind is clear people think that something has happened to their heart. The clarity of the mind is a totally different thing. The heart needs no clarity; it is already clear. There is no way to corrupt it. The heart only needs a reconnection with it.

The mind needs clarity. It is corrupted by the society, corrupted by the history of man, corrupted by culture and religion and everything. All the priests and politicians have been corrupting it. It is polluted – more than the atmosphere. But the heart is simply out of the way. We have been trained for the mind so we have learnt how to bypass the heart and go directly to the mind.

The heart needs no clarity. It is clear – you just need a reconnection with it. The wires have to be reconnected. EST cannot do that; it has not yet developed anything of the heart. In fact it is still a by-product of the technological mind. But it can give great clarity to the mind and that’s good. In that clarity things can become possible where reconnection can happen. But in itself it cannot bring you back to the heart. It has nothing of love in it yet; nothing of prayer in it.

And it will not have because once something starts succeeding, it stops growing. The person who is controlling it becomes afraid of trying new things. He becomes more and more efficient in the thing and then things stop. When a thing starts succeeding, it starts dying because it is very difficult to find people who can remain inventive even when they are succeeding... very rare people. Success kills badly, and in the West things succeed so fast that that success kills everybody.

But nothing to be worried about. You are here – I will reconnect you. [A sannyasin says: I’ve done all the groups in the West!]

That’s good. That’s how you have become ready for me. All the group people are bound to come by and by to me. The groups are creating a tremendous possibility for growth but they are not yet complete so they leave you in a sort of limbo. But that’s good – otherwise you would never come to me. Everybody who is somewhere, somehow connected with therapy, psychology, psychoanalysis or the humanistic groups, is somehow already on the way towards me because sooner or later a metapsychology is going to be born. Psychology is not enough, because psychology is confined to the mind, and man’s being is beyond mind. It is more like no-mind.

A metapsychology is just there waiting to be born. A metapsychology will be the psychology of the no-mind, the psychology of the beyond. So you are ready for the metapsychological trip!

Just become in tune with my family here. You are a member of my family, so just get in tune with people, meet people.

[The sannyasin answers: My heart wants to be as close to your vibration as possible.]

I know... you will be. That’s exactly what you need. You need the nourishment that my presence can give you. So just feel my presence, and just absorb it as much as you can. Let it go into you with each breath. While you are here, breathe me, eat me, drink me.…

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